My Black History:

My father died a couple of months before my 3rd birthday.  In January 1953 he accepted the pastorate of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama.  He had suffered all his life from the effects of polio and a rheumatic heart.  In May 1953, he underwent open heart surgery to repair a mitral valve - the tenth surgery of it's type.  The first was successful; the other eight had died. My father died December 6, 1953, on a Sunday evening.  My mother said he died at the hour that he would have been in the pulpit when he was preaching.  My father's suffering never stopped him from going wherever he needed to go.  Mother said that he couldn't remember ever taking a step in his life that was without pain.  Pain was a part of his life.  

A white man, with a white pastor as a father?  What could I know about Black History?  I will share other Black History moments in my life, but I wanted to start with this "what if" situation.

Based on what I know of my father, from my mother, family members, and letters, 

I know that he was a man who never gave up on his dreams.  

I know he was a man who had love and compassion for others.  

I know that he was a man who loved God. 

I can imagine, if he had lived a few more years, this white Pastor in Montgomery would have found a way to stand, in pain, with a black Pastor on Dexter Avenue, and use his voice "to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners." (Isaiah 61:1 NRSV, also referenced in Luke 4:18).